Zaad Posted December 16, 2003 Report Share Posted December 16, 2003 BKK Post, Tuesday 16 Dec 2003. Parents have been warned not to let children under two years old watch television, as that could affect brain growth. Somsak Lohlekha, president of the Royal College of Pediatricians, said watching TV could narrow down the functioning of a child's brain by making their growing nerve cells inactive. Speaking at a press conference held by a network of 25 organisations on child development, Dr Somsak suggested parents pay special attention to the first few years of child development by emphasising human contact. Human interaction with children would make them more creative and thoughtful, he said. Children below six years of age should not be allowed to watch TV for more than one or two hours a day, and they should be accompanied by an adult, particularly when violence or love scenes are depicted, so that children can be taught to distinguish between what was on TV and what happened in real life, he said. A recent survey conducted on 9,488 children under 18 by the Long Term Research Project on Thai Children found that children spent one-fifth of their waking hours in front of TV. About 97% of children aged less than one spent at least 1.9 hours a day in front of the tube, while those aged 6-18 years spent almost 20 hours per week watching TV. Chanphen Choopraphawan, director of the long-term research project, warned that most TV programmes did not support child development and hampered their creativity by making them rude, immune to scenes of violence, provoked early sexual interest and consumption of health-damaging products. Instead of making cheap TV sets accessible to each household, Dr Chanphen called for the government to take up the role of sponsoring good TV programmes for children. Panelists called on the government to invest more in recreational activities for children, particularly good books. Link to article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted December 17, 2003 Report Share Posted December 17, 2003 Haven't watched TV myself for 25 years, neither does the mother (in my presence). Should have no problems with not leaving the kids watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaad Posted December 17, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2003 Do you happen to live in Thailand? I'm asking because I don't spend half the time in front of the TV in LOS as I did in Europe since my arrival here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limbo Posted December 17, 2003 Report Share Posted December 17, 2003 I spend most of time in front of my computer screen......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted December 18, 2003 Report Share Posted December 18, 2003 >Do you happen to live in Thailand? Since recently I have moved to Tokyo. Before it was Australia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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